


We don't talk anymore

by qwertysweetea



Category: South Park
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Feels, Craig Tucker Being An Asshole, Denial of Feelings, Feelings Realization, Fist Fights, High School, Idiots in Love, M/M, Pining Craig Tucker, Post-Break Up, he's just bad at feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21533482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwertysweetea/pseuds/qwertysweetea
Summary: He was just someone he went to elementary school with; they fell apart in high school. No big deal. That happens, right? It's not his fault they realised they were different people who like different things.So what, maybe he’d been a bit blunt. A bit cold. Too set on saying something that he didn’t think about what he wanted to say before it was coming out of his mouth.Fuck... it was totally all his fault.A good helping of Craig pining over Tweek a couple of years after he panic ended their fake relationship because he didn't know how to make it a real one.[Aged-up characters]
Relationships: Craig Tucker/Tweek Tweak
Comments: 1
Kudos: 87





	We don't talk anymore

He was just someone he went to elementary and middle school with; they fell apart in high school. No big deal. That happens, right? Friends drift apart as they grow. Friends who are fake boyfriends do the same. It's not his fault they realised they were different people who like different things. That’s just the way things work.

He repeats it to himself a lot, a Hell of a lot more than he probably should. Distraction seems useless once he's in that mood; it always comes back to that, a mantra of excuses he's perfected over months of self-pity.

But sometimes the thoughts would catch up to him and he wondered if the other could feel him looking at him, see him out of the corner of his eye. He wondered if-

“What the Hell do you think you’re looking at Craig?!”

-if he still remembers how it all got this fucked.

“I’m looking at you, clearly.”

“Well, you can stop.”

Tweek’s voice isn’t as high as it used to be; it doesn’t have an obvious tremble to it either. He’s learnt to handle the anxiety better, or maybe he’s just become better at acting like it isn’t consuming him whole. Sometimes he twitches, but it seems less connected to his thoughts than it did back when he was ten and constantly skirting the edge of a full-blown, psych-hospital grade breakdown. More like it was an intergraded part of him. Muscle memory.

Maybe it was now. It had been two full years since they’d spoken in more than quick and angry hisses. A lot had changed in himself, he'd grown, said and done things that had shifted his world around for the better and the worse; it’d be stupid to think the other hadn’t done some pretty extreme changing of his own.

It wasn’t a matter of who was to blame, he continued to insist.

It’d been cute while they were still children and the cooing attention of the adults around them had meant something, but they weren’t children anymore. At least, not that type of innocent and naïve child who thought that holding hands and playing video games meant something so deep and profound.

It wasn’t his fault it got boring. It wasn’t his fault that the lie caught up to them when they got old enough to want more than empty handholding and occasional pet names. It wasn’t his fault that Tweek was too stupid to realise that when he said he was tired of them, he didn't really mean he was tired of _them_.

Maybe it was a little bit his fault that he didn’t tell him to his face, that he’d waited until he was on holiday with his family in Canada, or that he hadn’t told him that he was away, or that he’d waited for Tweek to call him in a panic from his ransacked bedroom floor.

“Aren’t you tired of always needing to know where I am? Listen to yourself, you’re a fucking mess and for what? I’m not your real boyfriend, Tweek. I’m tired of acting like this is something it isn’t. We’re not eight anymore. Nobody cares if we’re together or not.”

So what, maybe he’d been a bit blunt. A bit cold. Too set on saying something that he didn’t think about what he wanted to say before it was coming out of his mouth. Maybe he had been too caught up in the adrenaline and irritation of it all that he hung up just as he heard his fake boyfriend, best friend, secret love of eight years say:

“B-But I care.”

 _Fuck_ , it was totally all his fault. Same conclusion, no matter how many times he went over it. It was completely, indisputably his fault and nothing was taking that away any quicker than it was taking away the unsettling pounding in his throat when he saw Tweek leaning against the bus-shelter wall or walking down the corridor with his mismatched group of friends.

Or in this case, hovering by the gym changing rooms exit, waiting for their respective friends after their lesson.

“I told you to stop looking at me.”

“Sorry.” It was insincere and barely muttered; only enough for the other to hear.

Tweek scoffed, his friend snickered.

He should walk away, tell his friends that he’d meet them by their lockers and prepare himself for the barrage of unhelpful comments that came with it.

Ping. _I’ll sort him out for you._ Ping. _Pussy._ Ping. _Jesus fuccin Christ just talk to him this is pathetic._ Ping. _Gonna be twitching on the floor with a broken face if he starts shit with my boy 💪_. Ping. Ping. Ping.

That’s what he’s expecting. That’s what they’re all expecting.

He’s weak when it comes to Tweek. He could tell himself it’s because he feels guilty, because it’s his fault, that if he convinces himself it’s not a big deal then maybe that niggling, lovesick shadow looming over his head will blow away, but even that doesn’t sit right.

He’s always been weak, from their downright pathetic fight that put them in hospital, throughout the entirety of their fake, semi-real relationship, right that very second. He was shit at showing it and even shitter at saying it but God, he was. Everyone knew it, he knew it, everyone but the one person he needed to, knew it.

So he didn’t push himself off the wall and stalk away with his tail between his legs like he usually did. He didn’t pull out his phone and message his friends. He didn’t bite at the inside of his cheeks until they were tender to stop himself saying what he’d been reluctantly thinking for the two years since he’d caused this mess.

He took a deep breath, and-

“About time, I thought you’d slipped and cracked your head open or something!” Tweek’s shrill voice cut through the tension he’d build up around himself, a relieved smile breaking through the concern on his face as his friend threw an arm around his shoulders.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” The words punched out before he could swallow them down.

A little flinch from the other; his anxiety peaked at the noise and his wide, confused eyes drawn to it but nothing more.

“I’m tired of this shit Tweek. You seriously gonna act like we were nothing? Like I’m some kind of stranger?!”

Irritation slowly took over the anxiety on Tweek’s face. “You’re tired of a lot of things, aren’t you? You’re tired of us, tired of me. Now what? Tired of not having things your own way? Because you wanted to pick me up and drop me and pick me up again when you wanted, and you’re tired of me not playing along?”

“Wait, that’s not it.”

The shorter boy snarled, bite morphed into the pained grimace he saw so often as they were growing up. He looked so much younger than he had moments before, almost as young as Craig had started to feel.

A lot of things had changed. They’d grown and shifted, made stupid mistakes but Tweet was still the anxiety-ridden boy he adored, and he was still the idiot who didn’t know what to say to him.

“Then how is it? How is it Craig?! You wanna fake date me, then you don’t, then you do, then you’re tired of me. What next?! What do you want me to do? What do you want?!” He screamed back.

Craig stood, dumbfounded. Eyes wide and chest heavy. A crowd had gathered around them, their friends and their listless looks met with joined sighs from beside them.

“I was right before.” Tweek continued, voice lower and softer “All you do is use people. For so long I thought it was more than that, yano? It wasn’t just that we made people happy, you made me happy too and I thought… I thought even though it was fake, it sort of wasn’t after a while.”

“I didn’t want it to be fake anymore-”

“Yeah, no shit!” Tweet interrupted.

“-I just didn’t know how to tell you I wanted it to be real!” He continued, hand gesturing between them both in the open space. “I was scared and I panicked, give me a break!”

“Give you a break? Give you a break?!” Tweek stormed forwards, pushing the other back with enough force to have him dancing backward to keep his balance. It wasn’t strong enough to knock the breath out of him but it did anyway. “I’ll give you several breaks you asshole!”

.

The medical room was bright; buzzing, florescent light bright. It split his skull open from the inside as the nurse dabbed at the grazes on his face with anaesthetic.

It was a distraction from the sting of it, the aching of his muscles, the pulsing need to meet the eyes that were baring into his side from the chair across the room. Not much of one, not enough of one to hold back the tide of things he hadn’t got to say amongst the onslaught of punches.

“Just like old times, right?” He flexed out his bruised hands against his legs, sighing out a laugh so soft it was barely there.

A huff was his reply, and it might have been wishful thinking but Craig could have sworn he heard a smile in that too.


End file.
